It could be argued that the current adult education paradigm aligns with a liberal knowledge economy. A more critical perspective is Paulo Freire's banking education concept that removes criticality from a learner's repertoire and facilitates alignment with the prevalent liberal education and its hegemonic objectives. Drawing from Paulo Freire's…

This article conducts a critical analysis of the Incredible Years parenting programme through the lens of post-colonial and post-structural theories. Drawing from Foucault's concept of 'governmentality' and 'discursive normalisation', the author questions the norms and definitions constructed by the implementation of Incredible Years in New…

Adult education programs are often grounded in problematic assumptions about learners' inadequacies. The purpose of this article is to critique such assumptions through presenting a history of the manner in which representatives of Canadian governments conceptualized the education of Inuit adults from the 1940s through the 1980s. Using…

This study explores the interplay of nationalism and English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom practices, as reported in 11 interviews with ELT educators in various locations (e.g., United States, Serbia, France, and Saudi Arabia). The study approach is informed by theories of discursive nationalism which interpret nations and nationalized things…

This article focuses on the idea of entrepreneurial subjectivity and the ways in which it is shaped by the entrepreneurial discourse in adult education. As a result, we argue that educational practices related to adults form a particular kind of ideal subjectivity that we refer to as entrepreneurial. In order to understand how this entrepreneurial…

A major structural problem in the teaching of English worldwide is to be found in the arthritic power relationships that continue to limit the continuing professional development of its practitioners. The acceptance of the superior status of "theory" and "theorists", and the consequent subordination of teachers as the…

Using fieldnotes from the non-formal adult education classes run by a non-profit international education with ground operations in rural Mozambique, this article documents how the comments made by class facilitators and class participants in those classes reflect inherent power inequalities between non-profit staff and local participants. These…

Offender counseling has been booming in China with typical Chinese characteristics, one of the most prominent of which is the possession of dual identities by both parties during the counseling interaction. This article, based on conversation analysis, focuses on one case study and examines "what is actually going on" between the police…

Following one of the new challenges suggested by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, a treatment was developed to enhance pragmatic competence, since this competence is not easy to acquire by non-native speakers. Within this context, we focused on pragmatic awareness in the workplace, an area of expertise in growing demand…

This paper revisits and discusses some of Paulo Freire's theoretical tenets for participatory education suggested as part of a critical approach to the education of adults. Through data collected during a family literacy programme, the author analyses her discursive interactions as an adult education tutor with parents as learners. These discourse…

This article considers the status of indigenous knowledges as forms of knowledge in the multicultural context of Sudan, through exploration of Sudanese adult education teachers' perceptions of culture, language and knowledge in education. Drawing on critical and poststructural theoretical concepts, cultural discourses in education are shown to…

Educators are inclined to think that the words they use in their discourses about policy, research, and practice mean what they mean them to mean. It is just as clear, however, that such discourses ideologically produce and reproduce relations of power that benefit some and disadvantage others. This essay begins an argument that educators need to…

Contrary to the dominant discourse metanarrative, this dissertation explores, re-exposes, and updates the generally hidden realities of what is actually taking place in the current operation of the American criminal justice system. The government/dominant discourse benefits from the amorphous ambiguity of the law in conjunction with its usage of…

This paper attempts to reveal some strategies performed by a teacher which indicate that s/he is exercising power in managing and conducting language teaching and learning process. Such power may be manifested in terms of the frequency of directives or of the holding of control over the interaction process. Despite the fact that exercising power…

This article provides a feminist poststructural analysis of the authors' academic labor during a State of the Field Literature Review of Gender and Adult Learning for a government-funded educational body. Drawing on Foucault and feminist theorists, the authors pay particular attention to how power seeps down through the system to our bodies in our…